Brussels with Eleanor

Monday 22nd June Nice breakfast of yoghurt, croissants, bread rolls, juice and strong coffee. The waitresses were kept busy pouring coffee, clearing and resetting tables. All the guests except us were French-speaking Africans so we felt quite at home!
As Eleanor had still not turned up 20 minutes after the arranged time to meet, I went downstairs to try to phone her and was successful on the second attempt. She was having problems owing to a faulty Google map, and no-one seemed to know where the hotel was. However, our helpful hotel receptionist soon gave her the right directions, and she arrived very quickly, she’d only been a short distance away! I was touched that they didn’t charge me for the phone calls
After spending some time discussing where to go, we set off for the Cathedral on the metro. It's a great public transport system, a day ticket takes you everywhere within the city. Unfortunately our camera’s batteries went flat, and Eleanor’s were too!

We enjoyed looking at the Bourse and Grand-Place – fantastic buildings, some decorated with gilt. There were some lovely paintings on sale in the square, as well as plants in pots. After buying museum and transport passes, we walked to the palace through some interesting gardens.
We were quite amused by the guards’ slow march, each arm being raised up to horizontal at each step. What a boring job!
The yummy chocolates + beautiful lace in the shop windows were very tempting, but we resisted very well. We only came across the Manneken Pis by accident, nearly missed it as it’s so SMALL, but I really don't understand why everyone raves over it so much, I think it’s rather rude!
We ate some spicey Turkish kebabs for lunch, before returning to the hotel for a rest, our feet were sore after all the cobbles, which are laid in scalloped patterns.
There didn't seem to be a good restaurant near our hotel, it's in rather a grotty neighbourhood, so we returned to town, ending up in a Thai restaurant near St Catherine’s and the Bourse. The food was beautifully served; Bruce had an orchid on his plate + my beef curry was served in a clay pot kept warm over a candle in a bowl.
An amusing incident – a police car stopped in a side-street, a second joined it, blocking the entrance – 2 other motorists tried to enter the street, blocking the main road as they couldn’t get past the police cars! Traffic started building up in the main road, people started honking their horns! Eventually one of the police cars was moved, restoring everything to order!